Ideas
by Tajjas
Summary: There were good ideas and there were bad ideas. This one could go either way. AU, Erik meets another mutant in his early Nazi-hunting days.
1. A Back Corner Apartment

_There were good ideas and there were bad ideas. This one could go either way. AU, Erik meets another mutant in his early Nazi-hunting days. _

_Rating for some language, the fact that Erik isn't necessarily the nicest person in the world (although his targets are Nazis), and some reference to child abuse.  
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><p>The apartment building didn't look like much from the outside, and what little Erik had seen through the two tiny, dirty windows on the ground floor looked like less, but the people he got his information from didn't give him bad information. He didn't give them the <em>option<em> of giving him bad information. No, tucked away here in a back street corner apartment in an utterly nondescript part of the city lived Herr Hofmann, formerly an officer at Buchenwald. Like more than a few members of the SS he'd slipped away before he could be taken into custody for trial and payment for his crimes. Erik was doing his best to rectify that.

Well, not the custody part.

Or the trial part.

If Erik had been in the habit of such things, he might have wondered who the neighbors thought Herr Hofmann was; how they'd feel if they knew what their building was really harboring. He didn't actually care, though, he was here to end the bastard's worthless existence and in the process collect whatever information the man had about any other Nazis who'd made it out of Germany. Unfortunately Erik had been a little…hasty…in his dealings with his last target—not that Herr Gruber had had much of a constitution in the end—and hadn't gotten much information from him beyond Hofmann's location. If he couldn't get more names from Hofmann he'd have to return to Europe and start again from the source, and Erik hated the tedium of ocean voyages.

To begin his interrogation, however, he required Herr Hofmann's presence, and though Erik had been waiting patiently—for certain definitions of the word—in the narrow alleyway between Hofmann's building and another of the same construction, he had yet to see any sign of the man.

A woman who must be _Frau_ Hofmann had put in an appearance an hour or two ago, dragging a blond probably blue-eyed little Aryan advertisement along by the ear and ranting...Erik had very little experience with children but at a guess put the brat at somewhere between ten and twelve, and whatever his crime had been he'd been thoroughly beaten for it as soon as the door was shut. With the promise of more to come when Frank arrived home, Frank presumably being Herr Hofmann's current alias, but Nazi-spawn or not that much the brat would be spared because Erik's engagement with his father was far more pressing. Erik was just glad that he had confirmation that Herr Hofmann was expected home tonight.

Erik's frown deepened suddenly. The windows hadn't done much to mute the brat's yells or Frau Hofmann's shouts which meant they wouldn't do much when Erik interrogated Herr Hofmann either. And this neighborhood wasn't quite bad enough that screams coming from inside an apartment would be ignored, especially if they went on for an extended period of time.

There were certain techniques that Erik could use to keep Hofmann quiet, or at least quiet_er_, but it limited what he could do and assumed that Frau Hofmann and the brat weren't screaming as well. When he'd seen them he hadn't thought much about it, assuming that he could just gag them or knock them unconscious and shove them in a closet as he had Herr Alder's wife, but there always was the risk that they'd come to or get free at just the wrong time. He could slit their throats outright, he supposed, but it was a complication he wasn't in the mood to deal with.

The _easiest_ thing to do would be confront Herr Hofmann somewhere else, somewhere deserted. Somewhere like the abandoned warehouse that Erik was using as his temporary home and base of operations where the only people who might see him come or go were the drivers of the unmarked trucks that occasionally visited the warehouse next door. But according to Herr Gruber Hofmann worked in a department store which meant people all around—too many people for Erik to take on at once—and generally speaking there were too many people out and about on the streets for Erik to grab him there as well. To say nothing of the awkward burden a grown man's body would be if Erik had to carry him across half the city.

A grown man. Erik tilted his head as an idea came to him. Carrying the body of a grown man or woman would bring him nothing but trouble, but a child? A man could openly carry an unconscious child with just the claim that he was sleeping, and once he had the Nazi-spawn back at the warehouse it wouldn't matter how much noise he made. Whether it was a lingering desire to differentiate himself from Herr Doktor Schmidt or something else Erik had never crossed the line into torturing children, but if the brat happened to be crying in fear…well, Erik wouldn't complain if it made Herr Hofmann more forthcoming. And he'd do the Nazi-spawn the courtesy of putting him somewhere else when Erik killed his father.

Erik shook himself and then stepped out of the alley and onto the street, taking a casual stroll past the main apartment door and the second window. The lock would be no trouble, but if he wanted to lure Herr Hofmann to him he'd have to get the brat out quietly. There had to be a note, too, one instructing Herr Hofmann to come alone to the warehouse—Erik had no interest in Frau Hofmann and he certainly didn't feel like explaining anything to the local police—and demanding some amount of money to make it seem legitimate. If Hofmann brought money with him that would be a bonus and one less thing for Erik to worry about when he went after his next target; if he didn't then Erik would still have time and privacy for his interrogation.

Erik didn't believe in luck, but as he stepped past the second thin-paned window and took a casual glance inside he was pleased to see the Nazi-spawn standing in front of the kitchen sink with no sign of anyone else in the room. The brat didn't even look up, and Erik took a few steps back and leaned against the wall by the door, checking his pockets. A scrap of paper from his notebook and the pen in his other pocket gave him the ransom note he needed…the figure was arbitrary, but that hardly mattered. Only making sure that Herr Hofmann came to the right address mattered.

A casual glance around told him that no one was paying him the least bit of attention, and he shifted a bit and put one hand to the door, just above the knob.

The lock clicked open obligingly—it was a tiny thing, well within the capabilities that Schmidt had beaten into him—and after one last look around to ensure that he wasn't being observed Erik slipped inside. The door opened on a narrow entryway rather than the kitchen proper, but he could hear splashes from around the corner, and he felt his lips curl upward as he drew his gun from the holster under his jacket and stalked forward.

The brat didn't turn as Erik entered the room, his focus on the pot in the sink front of him, and even if Erik hadn't known how to move silently his footsteps would have been covered by splashing and the muttered string of complaints accompanying the scrubbing. Complaints in English, but that was probably part of the Hofmanns' attempt to hide what they really were. Something must have alerted him to Erik's presence as Erik stepped up behind him, though, because he spun abruptly and as-predicted blue eyes widened when he saw Erik.

Before he could draw breath to scream Erik struck him in the head with the butt of his gun and he collapsed to the floor.


	2. An Abandoned Warehouse

_Thanks to everyone who read._

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><p>What the ever-loving hell?<p>

It was the first thought Alex had upon waking, and it took him a moment to connect it to anything. Then the throbbing pain in his head registered and he remembered the tall, cold-eyed man who'd somehow appeared behind him in the Harrisons' kitchen. And realized that he was lying on a concrete slab. "What the ever-loving _hell_?!"

He shoved himself to his feet and then stumbled unexpectedly as a wave of dizziness overtook him and he nearly tripped over a chain. That was attached to his wrist. "This is…not good."

His mind was scrambling to make sense of the situation, but he wasn't coming up with much. The obvious option was that he'd been kidnapped, but seriously, what kind of idiot would kidnap an orphan with no real friends or family or anyone else to give a damn? Wasn't that supposed to happen to rich people with ransoms and stuff?

A few of the comments he'd heard from the older guys in the few days he'd spent in juvie sprang to mind suddenly—cruel barbs about what could happen to a kid all alone in the world—and Alex decided that he wasn't going to go down that path. He'd assumed those jerks had just been trying to scare him, and he hadn't been about to admit they'd succeeded, but if they'd been telling the truth…. No. Forget that.

Maybe he hadn't been kidnapped. Maybe he wasn't actually chained up in a giant cold room. Maybe he'd tripped and gotten another concussion and all of this was just some kind of horrible stupid delusion. Yeah, that had to be it. Right? A concussion would explain why his head hurt, at least, and when he put his un-chained hand up to check he found the beginnings of a knot.

Pinching his arm didn't make him wake up somewhere else or make the chain go away, though.

He took a few deep breaths to steady himself. He obviously was here, wherever here was—lost, anyway, even if it wasn't the somewhere-in-the-woods kind of lost Dad had warned him about when they used to go camping—and the odds of anyone even noticing he was gone never mind coming to rescue him were pretty much nil. So he'd just have to do it himself. At least he wasn't to the point where _it_ was going to happen. Not yet.

After a quick rub to the reddened skin on his arm where he'd been pinching himself he let his hand fall and took a long look around at what he could see in the low light. He was in an old warehouse, he could tell that much, with what looked like broken pallets scattered around and piles of debris here and there. Despite the fact that he could make out the shapes of lamps overhead none of them were turned on; all of the light was coming in through the broken windows up near the ceiling. When the sun finished going down it was going to be pitch black in here.

The chain on his wrist was secured to the wall five or six feet behind him, attached to a ring in a block of cement, and it was obvious upon examination of piece around his wrist that even if he could find a paperclip or sliver of metal or something he wasn't going to be picking the lock anytime soon. Mostly because there was no lock. It looks almost like the last few links of the chain had been opened, wrapped around his wrist, and then welded back together. There was no way that Alex could have remained unconscious for all of that, though, no matter how hard he'd gotten hit. At the very least his wrist would be burned. What had _happened_ to him?

Alex took a deep breath and gripped the chain where it hung from his wrist in both hands, setting his feet and pulling as hard as he could, but it accomplished nothing—or nothing besides the sharp movement making his head throb again, anyway—and he dropped the chain and clenched his fists hard as his hands started to shake. As much as he wanted to pretend that it was, this wasn't some freaky dream, and not only was he somewhere that he'd never even seen before, he was well and truly trapped.

_It_ might not be about to happen, but he sure as hell wasn't calm either, and he found himself torn between wanting to curl up in a ball and hoping it would all go away and giving into his fear and screaming his head off.

"Wo ist er?"

Alex gasped in surprise, turning to find a whip-thin figure separating itself from the shadows, and as he moved into one of the bands of dim light Alex recognized the stranger from the kitchen. And fear was temporarily replaced by incredulity. "Is that German? What the _fuck_ is my problem with crazy Germans?" Bad enough that _it_ and the label of arsonist had landed him with the Harrisons who seemed to think that he was their personal servant and that they had the right to knock him around whenever they felt like it—and there was no point complaining to his social worker, either, because he'd heard her talking and already knew that her solution would be far worse than anything the Harrisons could do to him—but now he'd been kidnapped by another one?

The man ignored his question and stalked closer, and Alex backed up a little.

"Pretending that you don't understand me won't save you," the man growled in accented English. "Where is he?"

Definitely German. And definitely crazy. Alex hated his life.

"Answer me!" he barked.

A tiny part of Alex wanted to ask if the guy was talking about Santa Claus, but two years of hard experience in the system and another of _really_ hard experience since _it_ had started happening had taught him when it was time to hold his tongue. When a guy was already giving you a look that promised a horrible death—and had a stance that somehow conveyed that he'd done it before—that wasn't the time for goading. "Where's who?" Alex asked instead, proud that he managed to keep his voice steady.

"Your father."

Alex scowled, suddenly wishing that he had asked about Santa Claus and never mind the beating it would have earned him. "What's it to you? Who are you, anyway? You know, aside from a kidnapping psychopath."

"I'm the man who's going to send him to back to hell where he belongs."

This time Alex's clenched fists had nothing to do with fear. "Screw you. My dad was a hero."

The man moved even closer, looming over Alex. "He's murdering scum just like every other Nazi."

It was suicide to punch someone a foot and a half taller and who knew how many pounds heavier in the nose. Anyone with half a brain knew that, and whatever his teachers said Alex had way more than half a brain when it came to fighting. But the creepy kidnapper was probably going to kill him anyway and there was no way that Alex was going to stand by and let him say _that_. Besides, the psychopath was the one stupid enough to be standing within easy range when he said it.


	3. A Building on Fire

_Thanks to everyone who read and Charlie 7694 and F. Flotsam for reviewing._

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><p>It was surprise that let the punch connect, and if anyone ever claimed otherwise he was going to find six inches of steel in his throat. For a skinny kid the Nazi-spawn knew how to hit, though; if he'd been a bit heavier he might have managed to do more than draw a few drops of blood from Erik's nose.<p>

"You take that back!" he yelled, hands still clenched.

Erik wiped the blood away with one hand and grabbed the brat by the throat with the other, lifting him and taking the few steps necessary to press him against the wall.

"Let me go!" his anger turned visibly to panic as he thrashed wildly in Erik's grip, hands clawing at Erik's face—towards Erik's face, anyway; his arms weren't long enough for him to reach—while his kicks landed uselessly against Erik's legs. "Let me go or something _bad_ is going to happen!"

Erik tightened his grip. "Something bad is going to happen if you don't—"

Later Erik wouldn't be able to say what made him drop the Nazi-spawn and flatten himself to the floor. Instinct, a flash of light or heat that he didn't consciously process, _something_, but an instant after he released his grip and dropped to the concrete a wave of violent heat passed over him. He whipped his head around, trying to figure out what had happened, and while there was nothing particularly interesting about the brat stumbling, one hand on his throat where Erik had been choking him, the disc of red light that impacted one of the piles of debris a fraction of a second before a fire roared to life on Erik's opposite side was an entirely different story. "Oy!" It was as much an explosion of air as an echo of an exclamation Erik hadn't used in years, but there was really nothing else that applied.

Erik stared at the fire for a moment, trying to process, and then turned back to look at the child now pressed back against the wall of his own volition, his breath coming in audible gasps. The expression on his face when he saw Erik looking at him was probably supposed to be a glare, but he looked more terrified than anything else. "I _told you_ something bad was going to happen!"

"How did you do that?" Erik demanded, pushing himself back to his feet. "Have you done it before? When did it start?"

"What, are you writing a book? Go to hell."

The declaration was marred by a shiver, and Erik ignored it, deliberately stepping closer so he was looming over the boy again. "Does your father know that you can do that?"

The brat seemed to find a little more of his spine with Erik's question. "What _is_ it with you and my father? He spent the war in the Pacific; he didn't have anything to do with stupid psychotic crazy kidnapping Germans."

Something cracked sharply behind Erik, a piece of debris snapping in the fire if the sound was anything to go by, but Erik didn't even spare it a glance. A part of him recognized that the boy was _like him_ –once or twice he'd gotten a fleeting impression from Herr Doktor Schmidt that he might not be the only person with abilities out there, but it had never been anything concrete and Erik had long since written those impressions off as the last remnants of hope from a child trying to distract himself from the hell of his surroundings –and he was almost tempted to put off his revenge in favor of learning more.

"Well?" the boy asked.

No. He couldn't afford to put off his revenge, not if he didn't want the Nazi scum–Herr Hofmann and others–to disappear off to yet another corner of the world to continue the lives that they didn't deserve. He sneered. "Do you really think that lying to me will do you any good?"

"What—if I knew what I was supposed to lie about I'd sure as hell _try_." There was another crack, this time from overhead, and the brat's eyes widened. "That's not good."

Erik scowled and barely spared an upwards glance, at least until a flaming piece of wreckage landed only a few feet to his left. "_Verdammt_." A few sparks from the burning pile of rubbish must have reached the ceiling, and if it wasn't a full blaze yet, the wood was dry enough that there was every possibility it would become one. He could probably manage to pull that section of the ceiling down if he had to, the beams looked heavy enough to test his limits but gravity and the building's state of deterioration would work in his favor, but it would still be burning and putting off sparks just as the debris pile was still burning and extinguishing fires wasn't a particular talent of his. And unfortunately, despite the fact that most of the warehouses around here were deserted, Erik couldn't imagine that fire trucks _wouldn't_ be called out once someone caught sight of the blaze, if only to keep it from spreading.

He wasn't about to lose his chance to catch Herr Hofmann alone, though, and Erik reached out and grabbed the Nazi-spawn's arm, ignoring his attempt to shrink into the wall. With gritted teeth and a a curl of his fingers he forced the metal wrist manacle on the brat's wrist to separate and unwind.

"Hey, you…." Wide blue eyes stared up at Erik and then glanced back a few times between Erik and his wrist, surprise slowly replacing fear. "You did that." He blinked. "You did that, you can _do_ things. You're like me."

"I'm nothing like you." Erik shifted his grip to the brat's shoulder and began to drag him towards the exit. Where he was going to go he had no idea, but he'd figure it out on the way. Improvisation wasn't a new thing for him.

"You are!" the brat protested. "I saw it, you can do things. And you can do yours on _purpose_. Mine only happens when someone's trying to kill me or—"

He stumbled, and Erik snarled and kept dragging him along.

"Would you let me go? I want to leave the burning building too."

"Leave the building and bolt at the next opportunity, I'm sure." Erik's focus was mostly on where they were going to go after this—he was good at improvisation, but it wasn't as if he'd continued scouting for hideouts in the area after he'd found the warehouse district, and he couldn't think of anywhere offhand where he could store a kidnap victim that wouldn't invite attention —but he wasn't an idiot. He should have left the manacle on an attached the other end of the chain to his own wrist. "I'll send a new message to your father tonight."


	4. A Darkened Office

_Thanks to everyone who read and Charlie 7694 and F. Flotsam for reviewing._

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><p>Part—hell, most—of Alex wanted to run, and never mind that he had no idea where he was or where he might run to. After all, no matter where he ended up it would be hard for things to get <em>worse <em>since he was currently in the hands of a crazy kidnapper who thought he could talk to Alex's dead father. A dead father who he had some kind of grudge against, just to make things even better.

Alex stumbled again and was yanked back upright by a grip that wasn't very considerate of things like shoulder joints. He was _literally_ in the hands of, and all this being yanked around wasn't exactly making his headache better.

His kidnapper wasn't giving him any opportunities to run, though, and a tiny voice in the back of his mind said that maybe he shouldn't take it even if he had one. A tiny, very possibly suicidal voice, but Alex had never met anyone like him before. Ever. He'd always wondered if he was really the only one that _it_ happened to or if maybe it was some kind of family secret Dad and Mom hadn't had time to tell him about before they'd died. Wishful thinking, maybe, but he liked comics as much as the next kid and it would be pretty great to be part of a super hero family. Better than being a fire-blasting freak, anyway. It was just his bad luck that he had no family left to ask, and even he wasn't stupid enough to go around asking strangers. Juvie was bad enough; there was no way he wanted to get stuck in an insane asylum.

But now somehow this crazy psychotic kidnapper was like him. Or kind of like him, anyway. Metal instead of fire, and obviously he could control it instead of just shooting blasts everywhere when he was in serious danger of getting killed like Alex did, but that was still more than Alex had ever seen ever. In between flashes of terror he wanted to know more.

He stumbled again and scowled when he was jerked back upright. "Ow!" Even if the guy had forgotten that he'd knocked Alex unconscious, you'd think he'd have noticed Alex's arm was attached. For a skinny man he was way stronger than he should be, too.

Unfortunately the scowl that his kidnapper shot him, illuminated by the glare from the fire and leagues beyond anything Alex could manage in terms of intimidation, indicated that the psycho didn't really care if his arm stayed attached. Yeah, that tiny voice had to be suicidal.

As his kidnapper paused, Alex glanced back to see the warehouse they'd been in nearly consumed in fire, and he suddenly recognized the faint wail of a fire truck in the distance. And now he had to decide for real. If he fought hard enough he could maybe get away—even if he was just loud enough maybe someone would hear him—and if he could get to the firemen he'd be safe. Safer. Relatively. Maybe.

Alex hooked his teeth over his lip as he stared at the blaze and reality set in. Yeah, being kidnapped by a psychotic German was a pretty shitty situation to be in, and Alex wasn't sure what would happen when the guy didn't get a response from Alex's father—because, you know, dead—but it wasn't like the firemen were going to take him home for cookies and candy either. At best they'd send him back to Harrisons who weren't exactly shy about knocking him around, and at worst they'd decide the fire was his fault and send back him to juvie. Given his history the latter was more likely, and okay, yeah, the fire was _technically_ his fault, but it was only because—

A vicious curse from his kidnapper cut off that train of thought, and then he was being dragged again.

"Where—" Alex hadn't realized how loud the fire had grown until he spoke, but he could barely hear his own voice over the crackle of burning wood and falling metal behind them. So much for yelling doing any good, especially since the fire trucks had sirens on top of everything else.

"Shut up," his kidnapper snarled, shaking him.

Okay, so his words had done one thing: irritated the psycho even more. Great.

Alex was starting to think that his kidnapper didn't have a real plan, though, as he made a sudden turn and started dragging Alex diagonally across the lot towards another warehouse instead of towards the road as he had been. In the blaze from the fire the door looked almost rusted shut, but it snapped open suddenly at their approach, and Alex realized that the man must have used his…his what? Powers?...on the lock. Powers was as good a word as any, Alex guessed, although he'd never applied the term to _it_. The man still didn't seem to have a real destination, though, just dragging Alex into a side room of the new warehouse—a manager's office or something; it had a window anyway—and throwing him down against the far wall.

The shadows were deep in here, almost black in fact despite some low light coming in through the window probably from the fire across the lot, and Alex took a quick look around to see if there were any likely places to hide. Or another exit.

"If you try to run, I'll kill you," the man threatened before glancing behind them at the door they'd come in through. "When the trucks clear out, I'll send a new message to your father."

"What, do you know a really good priest or something?" Alex pushed himself into a sitting position. "He's _dead_, you can send as many messages as you want but it won't do any good."

Alex couldn't really make out his kidnapper's expression in the shadows, but the sneer was audible in his voice. "Lie as much as you like, I was there when your mother promised you another beating from him tonight."

"My mother? She's dead too so I don't know what you think—wait." Alex frowned as he suddenly managed to make some sense of the psycho's words. "Are you talking about Mrs. Harrison? She's not my mother. And Mr. Harrison's sure as hell not my father, he's just a jerk." With lousy aim. "The foster creeps of the week."

His kidnapper loomed closer suddenly, and in the flickers of light he looked marginally less psychotic and more confused.

"Foster parents," Alex said. "You know, people that take care of kids that aren't theirs. Or that's what they're supposed to do, anyway." Not too many of his had bothered with the 'taking care' part, especially after _it_ had started happening. "Did you not notice that neither of them look a thing like me?"

His kidnapper had him by the throat more quickly than Alex would have believed, slamming him back into the wall, and Alex's yelp had as much to do with the spike of pain from his skull impacting the old wood as it did from surprise. "Wh—"

The man raised a hand and snarled something in German.

Alex squirmed, but he wasn't going to be breaking that grip any time soon. It wasn't tight enough to make Alex panic, though and while he didn't much want to get hit, _it_ never happened unless he was afraid for his life. Well, that or in the grips of a nightmare, but while this should qualify, it wasn't that kind of nightmare. He clenched his teeth and brought his arms up in as much of a shield as he could.

"You didn't understand that, did you?" The grip on Alex's throat released and the man stepped back a little, half-claimed by shadow again.

"No." Alex wasn't sure what was supposed to happen next, but he felt kind of stupid standing there with his arms up when the man had taken a step back and dropped his hand so he lowered them slowly.

"What's your name?"

"Alex. Summers, _not_ Harrison."

Another sneer with a distinct tinge of disbelief. "Alexander? A good German name."

"A good American name too. Who are you?" There was a rustle and then a tiny light illuminated the space between them, the flame from a lighter.

"Erik."


	5. A Locked Room

_Thanks to everyone who read and to Charlie 7694 and F. Flotsam for reviewing._

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><p>Erik stared but didn't see any lie in the brat's face. And it was true that both Hofmanns had considerably rounder features and darker hair than the boy did, but…. "It doesn't matter," he decided. "He'll come for you anyway."<p>

"Who?"

"Herr Hofmann. The man you call Harrison."

The brat—Alex—snorted. "You're kidding, right? The Harrisons don't give a rat's ass about me. If I don't come back on my own they won't bother to go looking, they'll just say good riddance and probably keep collecting checks from the system until someone notices I'm missing." His shoulders hunched slightly. "I wouldn't count on that happening anytime soon. My social worker doesn't like me much either."

"Because you set things on fire?" A crash from outside underscored Erik's question.

Alex scowled. "Well you bend metal and kidnap people."

There was another crash and then a roar as something struck the window, and Erik cursed and flipped his lighter shut as he recognized the spray of water coursing down the outside of the window. Either this building was on fire as well, or the firefighters were dousing all of the nearby buildings to make sure that they didn't catch, and he didn't know which option he liked less. Fire was a problem, obviously, but he didn't want someone to decide to search the buildings in the name of safety and find them in here either. He shouldn't have opened his lighter. He should have sealed the building door behind them after they'd entered.

His fingers curled, searching for metal in the office door just behind him, but unlike the main door it was primarily wood. And that main door was too far away, now. He warped the tiny door lock anyway, just for good measure. It wouldn't stop a firefighter from breaking it down, but it would make one pause, and if the building really was on fire he could always make the metal separate again.

Alex was consumed by shadow, but Erik could still hear quick breaths from the space in front of him, so he hadn't tried to run despite the fact that he wouldn't have known that Erik had locked the door. That was convenient, at least, but Alex was now another problem that Erik was going to have to deal with. If Hofmann wasn't going to come for him there was no reason for Erik to keep him around, but if Erik released him there was always the chance that he would _warn_ Hofmann, and Erik didn't need another complication. True, from the way that Alex had spoken of the man he clearly didn't harbor any fondness for him which made it less likely, but Alex was still a child. And under the right circumstances anyone would talk, as Erik was well aware.

There was another roar as a second spray of water crossed the window, and Erik cursed again. He didn't think that this building was on fire which made the smart thing to do be hiding here until the commotion outside cleared, but that didn't mean that he liked it.

"Is this place going to burn up?" Alex asked.

"No. Sit down and be quiet." If there had been another chain available Erik would have chained Alex up again, but there wasn't much metal in the room. A few bits of metal on the door and window, a couple metal fasteners in their clothing, the nails in the walls, and a box of thin metal that was probably some kind of discarded file cabinet. With concentration and enough time Erik could probably have taken it apart and warped the sides into something chain-like, but that kind of manipulation had never been his specialty, and as long as Alex couldn't get out of the room it didn't really matter anyway. After all, what was he going to do, attack Erik? He'd already admitted that he only shot fire when he thought he was in danger of being killed; there was plenty Erik could do to him to keep him quiet without reaching that point.

Some shuffling followed his order, with some luck the boy obeying—the bits of metal in his jeans did drop lower so that was a good sign—and after a moment Erik stepped back and found the wall beside the door, sinking to the floor as well. Neither the wall nor the door was warm which was a good indication that the building wasn't on fire and it was just being doused for precaution…it didn't make Erik any _happier_ about being stuck here, but at least he wasn't going to have to contend with making a run for yet another building.

Actually, when the firefighters got the other building put out and left, he might take another look around and see if staying here, or leaving Alex here until Hofmann was dealt with, was an option. He just needed a place that Alex couldn't escape for a few days, and this might be good enough. Alex was certainly too light to take down the door, and there was nothing he could use as a battering ram.

Except there was that window. He'd have to take a closer look at the frame when the sun came up. Although…he frowned at the square of foggy glass, still too dirty for anything to be clearly visible through despite the fact that it had been sprayed down several times by the firefighters. He would almost swear that the lights outside had grown brighter. And maybe that could be explained by the impromptu wash—it would have cleaned of the exterior, even if the interior still bore a thick layer of grime—but it didn't explain why the sirens seemed louder too. At least one of the fire trucks must have moved closer to douse the building, of course, but—

His head jerked up at the faint sound of voices. Were they searching the building? He couldn't make out the individual words, but the tone made them shouts. Still, he shouldn't be hearing them from where he was if they were outside. "_Verdammt_."

"What?"

"Be silent."

"Wh—"

Erik was beside the brat before he finished his second question—what the question would have been he didn't know or care—yanking him up and clapping a hand over his mouth. "I said be _silent_."

The brat twisted in his grip but didn't make any more noise, which Erik considered a win. The voices were definitely less audible now, coming through the inside wall rather than the exterior one, and Erik pulled the two of them to the inside wall, putting them in the corner to the far left of the door. Hopefully if the firemen did break in they'd do a quick scan of the back of the room, decide that no one was in here, and move on.

The door rattled, and this time the firefighter was close enough that Erik could make out some of the individual words. 'Locked'—that was good to hear, that he didn't seem inclined to force his way in—but the rest of the words didn't make much sense. Something about a special unit and heroin? He shifted a little, straining to hear more.

"You sell drugs, too?" Alex hissed. "Is there anything you don—umph."

Erik growled and made a mental note not to loosen the hand over his mouth again until he was sure the searchers had moved on.

Drugs, though, that would explain the odd hours people came and went from the building next to the one he'd claimed, and that building was close enough that it might have caught fire along with his. No doubt how they'd been found out.

Damn yet again, it also meant that the extra sirens and the men searching this building probably weren't firefighters, more likely they were policemen. And they'd probably be patrolling this area for some time to come if they'd found a drug ring, too. Erik was confident of his own ability to sneak past them—he'd learned long ago that firearms discharging at inopportune times made for excellent distractions—but now he had to get Alex out as well. If Erik left him behind the police would find him, and while Erik was concerned that Alex _might_ warn Hofmann, he was sure that the police _would_. Warn him, or even worse, try and protect him if they didn't know what he really was. Maybe even if they did, it was hard to say. And not that he wouldn't go through them if he needed to, but that would be messy.

Something wet and squishy shoved into his palm suddenly and Erik jerked his hand back, startled. And then grimaced and scrubbed his hand against his jeans. "Don't lick me, that's disgusting," he growled, keeping his voice low. The voices of the policemen were only audible as murmurs, now, but they weren't out of the building yet. And in the end he'd dealt with more disgusting things

"No kidding. And you started it," Alex returned, his voice equally low.

"Keep your mouth shut until they're gone or I'll make you," Erik threatened.

"What makes you think they're going away?" Alex asked. "If I was searching for drugs, I wouldn't just walk past a locked door. I mean, that's a pretty crappy search."

That was…not a bad point. Unfortunately. Erik warped the lock a little more and then the hinges for good measure—not that either would stop a grown man for long if they wanted to batter the door down—and then jerked Alex towards the window.

"That arm is attached, you know," Alex muttered.

"Not for long if you don't be quiet."

Erik scrubbed the cuff of his sleeve against the corner of the high window, removing a few years' worth of dirt, and then peered through the glass. It still wasn't a clear view, but whatever fire truck had sprayed this building down had moved on, and while he could make out two police cars, he couldn't see anyone inside them. There were people around the still-blazing warehouse across the lot—they'd obviously given up on putting the fire out and were merely trying to keep it contained it at this point—but no one near this building. And the window itself…he couldn't have left Alex here, because when he broke the pathetic metal latch at the bottom and reached up to give it a shove it moved outward slowly.

Success made him relax slightly and he put a little more muscle behind his second shove to open it further, but this time the hinges creaked in protest. A horrible ringing sound that made Erik snarl. If the police were still in this building they would have heard that.

Voices from immediately outside the door a few seconds later proved that they had, and Erik gave the window one last push. A flick of his fingertips had the file cabinet on its side and sliding towards them, giving him a step up so he could look down at the pavement below, but as something struck the door he realized that there was no way he and Alex could go out together through the narrow opening. Erik could go out first and order him to follow but—

Another strike, this one splintering wood, and Erik grabbed Alex and lifted, tossing him out the window.


	6. A Maze of Alleys

_Thanks to everyone who read and to F. Flotsam, charlie7694, and an anonymous reader for reviewing._

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><p>Alex had a sudden sensation of being airborne—not a feeling that brought up a lot of good memories for him—but before he had time to panic he impacted something hard enough to knock the wind out of him and send another jolt of pain through his skull. He impacted the concrete, he realized a moment later. That psycho had thrown him out the <em>window<em>.

Said psycho followed an instant later, landing lightly on both feet, and he reached down with one hand to jerk Alex back to his feet. "Hurry up."

"Attached," Alex muttered again as he found himself once again being dragged across the lot, but either Erik didn't hear him or didn't care. Or both. Probably both. Except—

He tried to stop and then nearly ended up on his face again as Erik kept dragging him along. Except now he had just about a perfect opportunity to get away. Well, not quite perfect given the psycho with the death grip on his shoulder, but there were policemen behind them, firemen off to the side…even if he couldn't break Erik's grip, if he kicked and screamed and fought someone was bound to notice. Right?

Okay, yeah, they wouldn't actually _hear_ him over the roar of the fire, and even if they saw him it didn't mean he'd get away, and even if he did get away he still figured they'd be blaming the fire on him given his history. And with his luck they'd decide he was responsible for the drugs too because there were just so many thirteen year old criminal masterminds running around. But was that really worse than—

"Do you want me to knock you unconscious and carry you again?" Erik snapped, rounding on him.

Than _that_? "No," said with a scowl.

"Then hurry up." Erik didn't try crossing the street, instead dragging him along parallel to it, and when Alex glanced back he didn't see anyone following through the window. The policemen must have had to go back around out the side door of the warehouse. He couldn't decide whether he was upset or not that they still hadn't emerged when Erik took an abrupt turn and dragged him down an alleyway and out of sight of the building.

Erik took a few more sharp turns until Alex was left feeling completely lost—not that that was saying much; he'd never had a very good sense of direction—and then came to a halt so abrupt that Alex nearly stumbled into him.

"What the hell? Do you even know where were going?" Alex rubbed his arm when Erik released him, scanning the streets for something that Alex couldn't make out. "And why are you taking me there, anyway? I already told you that Mr. Harrison isn't going to come looking for me so you might as well just let me go." That was really the best of all possible solutions, now that he thought about it. Then the police wouldn't know he'd been anywhere near the fire, and sure, Alex would be alone, but maybe he could sneak back in at the Harrisons by morning and no one would ever be the wiser. Well, if he could find their place, anyway. And if that didn't work he could always try making it on his own. He wasn't stupid; it wouldn't be easy and all of the million things that could go wrong or could happen to a kid on the streets alone were what had stopped him from running away before, but given the other options how much worse could it get? Okay, yeah, he still kind of wanted to know how Erik had learned to make metal do what he wanted instead of just going off when panicking like _it_ did, but Erik was busy kidnapping him so he probably shouldn't think about that. "You don't know where we're going, do you?" he pressed when Erik continued to look around.

"Be quiet."

Alex scowled. "Make me." As soon as the words were out of his mouth his eyes went wide and he decided that his concussion had to be responsible for way more than just a headache because what kind of idiot said _that_ to a psycho—especially a psycho that he'd just pointed out he wasn't any good to—but oddly enough Erik seemed more amused than anything else. After a moment Alex decided that he would have preferred another reaction. Erik had a lot of teeth.

"Be quiet and hurry up."

As far as Alex could tell Erik still didn't know where they were going so he didn't see how they were supposed to 'hurry up' to get there, but he didn't want to get smiled at again so he scowled and did his best to keep his feet under him as Erik dragged him along.

The warehouse that Erik had kidnapped him to had been only one among a cluster of warehouses, but they'd since entered a maze of narrow streets in a neighborhood that was even worse than the one the Harrisons lived in, and part of Alex really wished he had the old switchblade he'd picked up a few foster homes ago. He'd lost it when he'd been stupid enough to let his social worker catch sight of it, and maybe it was for the best given what he'd seen Erik do with metal, but—

Alex nearly ran into Erik again when Erik made another sharp turn and then stopped abruptly. "What now?"

"Be quiet."

"And hurry up," Alex muttered. He was starting to think that Erik had forgotten every other English phrase out there except those two.

Erik ignored him and glanced around sharply before stepping close to the nearest door and pressed the hand that didn't currently have a death-grip on Alex's shoulder to the door. Something clicked a moment later and Erik pulled the door open and tossed Alex inside.

"Would you stop that?!" He could _walk_ for goodness sake!

Erik stepped in and shut the door behind him, clicking the lock shut again with a wave of his hand.

Alex pushed himself to his feet and rubbed his shoulder. And then the back of his head. He couldn't make out much—he should probably be glad that he hadn't bounced off anything when Erik threw him because he doubted that Erik could either—but it seemed like this was some sort of shop. It definitely wasn't someone's house, anyway.

For a minute Erik was just one more shape in the darkness, albeit the only one muttering in German, but then there was a sudden, harsh flash of light and Alex shielded his eyes. When he lowered his arm he found Erik holding his lighter again, frowning as he scanned the room.

"Warn a guy, would you?" Alex asked.

Erik glared.

"Yeah, yeah, be quiet."

Erik turned away, stalking around the perimeter of the room, and Alex stayed where he was and followed the ball of light with his eyes. At a guess it was some kind of second-hand shop—or possibly third- or fourth-hand given what Alex was looking at—and given the state of the place it was hard to say if it was still in operation or not.

Erik made a satisfied sound shortly after reaching the rear of the shop and then turned back towards Alex, and Alex took an instinctive step backward when he saw the chain in Erik's hands. It wasn't a heavy chain like the one back at the warehouse had been, it probably came from a hanging lamp or something, but that didn't mean that Alex wanted it attached to him. _He_ couldn't bend metal and make it let go.

"Come here."

"No! Stay away from me!" Alex took another step back and then turned and bolted for the door. It wasn't exactly conscious thought, but being alone on the streets suddenly sounded way better than being chained—

The light behind him disappeared and then Erik's hand slammed into the door above his as Alex struggled to turn the deadbolt. "_Nein_!"

"Let me go! You're not going to chain me up again!" He struggled as best he could, but Erik was already too close for him to put any real weight behind his punches. Some blows were connecting, but nothing that Erik even seemed to notice. The struggling was enough to keep Erik from getting the chain around his wrist, though, and Alex gave up on the punches and hugged his arms to his chest, stomping on Erik's foot at the same time. It might have worked better if Erik wasn't wearing boots. "Let me go!"

"Give me your arm!"

"No!"

Something hard struck Alex in the center of his back, driving him to his knees and making him cry out in pain.


End file.
